"BTW, before the next time you lecture an X-er who served in the volunteer military about the vaunted patriotism of the Boomers,"
Both your posts do that, a straw dog response. I haven't lectured anyone, much less generation X veterans such as my son that served in the 10th Mt.
" A man who joined up served less time (2 years vs. 3, IIRC) and was far more likely to get into a technical specialty and learn a trade. Also, if one preferred a certain service it was best to volunteer rather than taking a chance. This was especially true of the Air Force and Navy, which received far fewer draftees than the Army and Marines."
The draftee served the shorter time, not the volunteer, and the air force and navy did not draft.
The army and marines have changed their enlistment requirements out of necessity, not because letting 42 year old women in was a publicity stunt.
I'm glad your son served in such a fine unit (my wife served in the AF Weather detachment at Wheeler-Sack on Fort Drum) but if you didn't mean to lecture or condemn you shouldn't have slammed the current generation for being too unpatriotic to sign up. Have your cake or eat it.
The draftee served the shorter time, not the volunteer, and the air force and navy did not draft.
I may have been remembering that wrong, but my point still stands: Both groups faced a situation where they could decide when and where they would serve and followed their self-interest. Given a choice between serving two years at Uncle Sam's whim or three years on my terms, I'd take the second option, and I have no shortage of patriotism. The groups I speak of are a significant percentage of the Boomer men who volunteered and all of the Gen Y men who aren't volunteering now. That doesn't mean the Boomers are an unpatriotic generation, but it sure as heck doesn't mean they were the last patriotic generation.
The army and marines have changed their enlistment requirements out of necessity, not because letting 42 year old women in was a publicity stunt.
I didn't mean she was let in as a publicity stunt (though I see there was almost no other way for you to interpret my poorly written post) but was saying that this publicity event is a poor thing to draw conclusions from. There are lots of reasons that recruiting is difficult, and there are a lot of reasons beside difficult recruiting that the Army has decided to allow older people in.
You haven't made the case that X-ers and Gen-Y lack patriotism. You certinly can't make that case based on the current state of the armed forces. You will call that last statement another "straw dog" argument, but if you aren't comparing militaries to militaries, your argument falls apart.